Hey, it worked!

[jennyaxe]

After the most recent stress-induced crash at work, I finally got to go to a rehab facility. I've been seeing a therapist and a physical therapist. I've also started going to a series of lectures and talks about stress and "burn-out".

One thing the phys.therapist and I talked about was my pain and how I've been coping by trying to shut it in, keeping it locked away and trying to ignore it. I've started to feel that this isn't a good coping strategy in the long run. So on Monday we spent most of the time on "body awareness".

That basically just mean spending an hour lying on a mat on the floor, moving arms, legs and hands, stretching and relaxing, and trying to actually notice how it feels. Again, I basically just ignored the sense of discomfort in the abdomen - and I had some serious pain afterwards.

So, this morning, when I was driving to work, I felt the familiar ache rearing its prickly little head. And instead of ignoring it, I deliberately noticed it. I noticed how strong it was, where it was located, exactly what kind of pain it was. Then I told it that if it was still like that when I got to the office I'd take a painkiller, but until then it would just have to stay where it was and wait. Ten minutes later I was at the office, and I didn't remember about the pain being any worse than usual. Since the pain comes in waves, it's fairly standard that if I wait for ten minutes it may already be down to normal levels again - but that generally leaves me with a lot of tension in the abdominal area. This time I didn't have that amount of tension.

OK, so this isn't a panacea and it certainly doesn't mean that I'll never suffer from the pain again. But it's the very first step in a direction I think I need to go. Instead of spending a lot of energy trying to push the pain away, maybe I can accept that it's there and spend the energy on actually handling it instead. Maybe. Just maybe.

And, of course, maybe I should also try to actually notice signs of impending stress collapse before I go to pieces. That'd be a nice change, too...

Comments

[fluffboll.livejournal.com]

Sounds like the problem I had a while ago. =( Stress induced (eh, what's the English word for Magkatarr?) sour stomach. After two weeks with "Inside brus" (available without recepie at the farmacy) it actually disapeared... Now it only returns if I'm stressed in a longer period of time or drink alcohol.
Now I just have to cope with "colon irritable" wich can't be cured. =(
Stress is a mean and nasty thing to do to ones body for too long.

I hope you manage to ride the stress out soon and get some time for relaxation. =)

[gnapp.livejournal.com]

Interesting. It's fascinating how the body is affected by the mind in this way. (

I hope this works for you!

[ailbhe]

Oooh. I'd appreciate more updates on how this pain management works for you, as in, does it help more than once? Onceyour body works out what you're doing does it decide to stop working? That kind of thing.

[jennyaxe.livejournal.com]

It's a bit hard to tell, mainly because the pain varies from day to day, so I need to test a treatment for at least a few weeks before I can say whether it helps or not. But the muscle relaxing as such does work. I've noticed that I haven't had as much neck- and shoulder tension for the past week or so, despite having had enough things to be stressed about.

Still, last week was pretty bad, pain-wise, and it's hard to tell whether the relaxing helped or not, since I can't create a control-group consisting of myself and myself... we'll see how this week works out.